


The Naked Eyes

by Apikale



Category: Milo Murphy's Law
Genre: Established Relationship, Heterochromia, M/M, Massages, Sunglasses, solar eclipse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 16:11:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11924505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apikale/pseuds/Apikale
Summary: Cavendish and Dakota decide to watch the 2017 solar eclipse.  Eye protection is a top priority.





	The Naked Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> This is very closely based on my own experience watching the eclipse. I haven't even begun to do it justice.  
> Believe it or not, when I started writing this I meant for it to be a drabble, just something to keep me busy while on a long road trip back from, yep, Wyoming. I guess drabbles don't stay so short when you have hours and hours and hours to kill in the car. Hope you like it.  
> I took a popular headcanon about Dakota and decided to roll with it. I don't know if I subscribe to it or not, but it worked in this story.

When Dakota had first proposed the excursion, he had braced himself to spend hours, possibly days, convincing Cavendish.  He had expected a lecture on not getting sidetracked, or protest against spending the hours and hotel money to go somewhere with a decent view, or at least a stern warning about potential eye damage if they weren’t careful (or if Murphy’s Law decided to show up).

He hadn’t expected Cavendish to approve immediately.

“I suppose it _is_ one of the most spectacular events of the year 2017,” Cavendish had mused as he stirred sugar into a cup of tea in the coffee shop where Dakota had first made the suggestion.  “At least, that anyone in their right mind would want to witness.  We might as well enjoy it while we’re here.”

“And you don’t mind going a bit out of our way to see the whole thing?”  Dakota bit into a mint macaron, the special of the day.

“Certainly not.  From what I’m told, the difference between a partial eclipse and a total eclipse is like the difference between, well, night and day.  Literally.”  Cavendish sipped his tea gingerly, pinkie out and everything.  Dakota thought the mannerism was adorable, but he suspected that if he ever commented on it, Cavendish would stop doing it.  “We’ll need to take precautions, naturally, given the risks of viewing the sun through the naked eye, but protection is inexpensive and easy to come by.  I’ve seen those spectacles in nearly every retailer for at least the past week.  Oh, I do hope Mr. Block doesn’t issue us any last-minute assignments that would interfere with our plans.”

“If we go somewhere remote enough, he won’t be able to reach us.”

Cavendish smiled wryly.  “In that case, let us depart immediately.”

And that was how August 21, 2017 found Balthazar Cavendish and Vinnie Dakota perched on a plaid blanket in the middle of a raspberry patch in Wyoming.

It hadn’t been as easy as they had assumed—the clear skies had attracted far more tourism than the tiny town was used to, and what few motel rooms existed were charging nearly a thousand dollars a night, which people were all too happy to shell out.  Even the local campgrounds had been booked solid months, even years in advance, by eclipse crusaders from all over the world.  But at the last minute they had found a local family with a kid in college and a barn they weren’t using, who had been willing to rent them the loft for a relatively reasonable price.  Sure, the nights were cold at that altitude, and the barn didn’t provide a whole lot of insulation, but there was an old queen-size mattress the family had made up with lots of fleece blankets and quilts, and if they huddled close together, Dakota found the arrangement perfectly bearable.  As skinny as Cavendish was, his body radiated a lot of warmth, and falling asleep in his embrace had been all too easy.

The raspberry farm, according to all the charts they had consulted, lay smack dab in the middle of the path of totality.  Clearly other people had read the same charts, because for such an isolated location, Cavendish and Dakota were far from the only ones there.  The farmers had certainly foreseen this, and rather than shooing away the trespassers, had capitalized by charging a $20 parking fee, which Dakota had readily paid before Cavendish could get too indignant.

After all, this whole thing had been Dakota’s idea.

At least they were able to secure elbow room by hiking out into the field a little ways—most of the crowd stayed in the dusty patch that passed for a parking lot, setting up folding chairs and sipping beer from coolers they had hauled out in pickup trucks and SUVs.  Dakota wouldn’t have minded staying with them—it wasn’t like the other spectators could block their view of the sky, after all—but he knew Cavendish hated crowds, and the last thing he wanted was for his partner’s unease to ruin the experience.

“Drink some water,” Cavendish directed as soon as they had set up.  “It’s very arid in this region.”  He pulled a canteen out of his backpack and passed it over.  “And would you mind not putting your lips directly on the bottle?”

Dakota paused.  “It wouldn’t be the first time we’ve traded mouth germs,” he pointed out smugly, before compliantly tilting his head back and carefully positioning the flask so as not to choke on the stream as he poured the water down his throat.

He looked up to see Cavendish blushing redder than the berries on the vine behind him.  “I… I’m just not fond of backwash, is all,” he muttered.  “It’s only two minutes until first contact.  Here, put on your spectacles,” he said, changing the subject and pulling the aforementioned eyewear out of the knapsack.  “Those sunshades you usually wear are simply no good against the most potent rays.  Although you might want to take them off so the eclipse glasses fit more comfortably.”  Cavendish reached out to remove Dakota’s sunglasses for him, but Dakota scooted backwards suddenly.

“I’m good keeping them on,” Dakota told Cavendish as the latter looked bewildered.

“Oh.  Are they prescription?”

“No,” Dakota answered, then kicked himself internally.  He should’ve said yes, or, if he didn’t want to lie, he could have truthfully told Cavendish that he had forgotten his contact lenses.  Why _had_ he forgotten his contact lenses?  Sure, they were less comfortable than his shades, but prior to now he had always remembered them when he thought there was a chance of Cavendish, or anyone for that matter, seeing his eyes.

Cavendish shrugged and donned his own eye protection.  “Suit yourself.  Just as long as you still wear the eclipse spectacles.  It won’t do for you to go blind on me.”

“No worries there,” Dakota promised.  He slipped the glasses on over his shades, and was instantly plunged into total darkness.  Looking up at the sun, the only thing visible, he crossed his arms behind his head and lay down on the blanket.  At first he saw nothing unusual, just the same old yellow sphere humanity had known for all of history, but then it kind of looked like someone had sawed off the upper-right edge of the sun, just a little nick around where one-o’-clock should be.

“Do you see that?” Cavendish asked from next to him.

“Yeah, I see it.  Pretty nifty,” Dakota commented.  They watched as the sawed-off edge grew larger, until the crescent of the moon’s perimeter had moved in enough that the sun now resembled a cookie that someone had taken a bite out of.

Mmm, cookies…

“How much longer until we get the whole thing?” he asked Cavendish.

“Totality is still approximately seventy minutes away.”

“Dang, we got lots of time until it hits.”

Suddenly, the sun disappeared, and for a wild second Dakota wondered if the whole eclipse had sped up just to spite him, until he felt Cavendish’s hand on his face, slipping off the glasses’ cardboard earpiece.  Dakota fought the stab of panic and urge to resist the gesture; after all, Cavendish had left Dakota’s regular sunglasses firmly in place, keeping at bay the rush of daylight that otherwise would have been overwhelming to his dark-adjusted eyes.

Cavendish hovered over Dakota, framed angelically by the solar rays behind him, the actual reason for the sun’s disappearance.

“We needn’t spend the entire while staring up at the sky,” Cavendish explained.  “We’ll glance up periodically, but as you said, we have much time before we’ll receive the full effect.  No need to keep our glasses on while we’re just sitting here.  I would advise you to apply some sunblock, however.”  He produced a bottle of SPF 100.  No wonder the man was always so pale.

Dakota took the sunscreen to be polite and dabbed a little bit on his nose and the tips of his ears.

“You’ll want to be more thorough than that,” Cavendish warned.  “At least be sure to get your forehead and shoulders.”

“Why the shoulders?  I’ve got my jacket on.”

“It’s just a precaution,” the taller man said simply.

To humor him, Dakota took the top piece of his track suit off and tied it around his waist, then slapped some more of the sticky lotion onto his back.

“No no, you have to rub it in more,” Cavendish criticized him.  “Here, let me do it.”

And the next thing Dakota knew, Cavendish was massaging his shoulders, then rubbing the back of his neck, and then reaching awkwardly under his tank top to get every last bit of skin that could possibly be touched by the ultraviolet rays.

To help him out, Dakota yanked the shirt over his head, exposing his entire torso.  Although Cavendish sat behind him, Dakota could feel that Cavendish had tensed up, his hands shakier, but still soft and delicate.

Not that Dakota was about to complain in the least, but Cavendish spent far longer than necessary rubbing the oil into Dakota’s already bronze skin, running smooth circles around his shoulder blades, up and down his spine, on his lower back, very far down his lower back…

Dakota cursed the presence of other people and the fact that he couldn’t legally remove any more clothing.

He allowed Cavendish to reach around and slather up his stomach as well, even though it tickled and Dakota could have easily done it himself.  He waited eagerly for Cavendish to work his way up to the chest, and was not disappointed.  Greased by the sunscreen, Cavendish’s long fingers glided smoothly over Dakota’s nipples, sending a sharp tingle all the way down his spine.

When there wasn’t a square centimeter left on Dakota that Cavendish’s hands hadn’t found, the latter passed the bottle to the former.  “Now you do me,” he instructed as he removed his own jacket and shirt.  Dakota didn’t need to say a word for Cavendish to turn that lovely raspberry-red all over again.  “You… you know what I mean,” he stuttered.

Dakota did as Cavendish had asked, and although he didn’t think his burly paws could possibly be as pleasant as Cavendish’s gentle touch, Cavendish sank blissfully into the embrace as Dakota kneaded the sunblock across his back.  While Dakota wouldn’t dare point it out for the same reason he kept quiet about the pinkie thing, his partner let out tiny gasps and moans from time to time as Dakota’s thumbs alternated up and down his back.  Likewise, Cavendish did a poor job containing his pleasure as Dakota applied that sweet, white nectar to his abdomen, tracing those defined muscles as he did so, finally reaching his pecs, finishing it off with his best imitation of Cavendish’s caress over the nipples.

Alas, between the greater surface area of Dakota’s hands and the smaller surface area of Cavendish’s body, this massage session didn’t last for nearly as long a time as the one before it.  But speaking of time…

“Thirty minutes until totality,” Cavendish breathed heavily, the yearning in his voice not concealed.  “What say we take another peek?”

“Sure.”

A much more sizable chunk of the sun was gone now, Dakota realized as he gazed again through the eclipse glasses.  It didn’t so much look like a cookie now as it did a croissant roll.  The coffee shop from the other day had had tasty croissant rolls…

Dakota’s stomach rumbled.  Why did every stage of the eclipse have to resemble something edible?

He turned to the vine beside him and plucked a few raspberries, a sense of satisfaction settling on him as the ripe ones tumbled easily off into his hand.  Surely the farm would still profit plenty from their parking fee if they snagged a few berries.

He held out half of them to his partner.

“Hungry again, are we?” Cavendish asked, but took some nevertheless.  “They’re quite tasty.  You really should eat them slowly to savor them.”

“Sorry,” Dakota said, reaching for another handful.

Cavendish unzipped his backpack and pulled out a stick of beef jerky.  “I’m learning to abide by Milo’s backpack rule,” he told Dakota.  “And if there’s one eventuality I can count on, it’s you getting hungry.”

Dakota took the jerky and eagerly bit the top off.  “Balthy, you’re the best,” he said with his mouth full.

Cavendish smiled, but then shivered a little as a slight breeze blew over them.

Reluctantly, Dakota passed Cavendish the shirt he had removed.  “And if there’s one eventuality I can count on, it’s you getting cold.”

“The temperature will continue to drop the closer we get to totality,” Cavendish explained.  “It makes sense that we would start to feel it now.”

Dakota didn’t really mind it himself, but he donned his tank top anyway.  “Take my jacket, it’s warmer,” he suggested, passing the garment to Cavendish.  “Also, you look good in it.”

And it was true.  The bigger size draped over Cavendish as though he were a kid trying on his parents’ clothes, but it was endearing, and certainly worth it to keep him warm.  Besides, Dakota hadn’t seen Cavendish wear a whole lot of colors in the time they had known each other, and the bright red and yellow color scheme made for a cheerful change of pace.

So did the way Cavendish beamed at Dakota’s compliment.

“I guess we can put the sunscreen away,” Dakota said.  The sky looked just a little bit dimmer now, or maybe that was just his imagination.  They were still bathed in broad daylight, but there did seem to be something vaguely gray in the air, like a filter desaturating the color in a photograph.

“I have room in the pack if you wish to put away your sunglasses as well,” Cavendish offered.  “There’s even a case you can use, if your concern is them being jostled about.”

Dakota shook his head.  “Not needed,” he assured Cavendish, swallowing slightly, ignoring Cavendish’s puzzled look of… was it concern?  What would Cavendish have to be concerned about with regards to Dakota?  “How much longer is it?”

Cavendish dug around in the backpack for his pocket watch; Dakota couldn’t remember when he had put it in, but he guessed it was around the time Cavendish had removed off his coat.

That would make sense.  Cavendish wouldn’t want to risk the grit from the ground clogging up the watch’s gears if it stayed in his jacket and the jacket got kicked off the blanket, and Dakota certainly wouldn’t have noticed anything else when Cavendish had been stripping.

“Twenty-three minutes,” Cavendish read from his watch, then closed it again and lay down.

“What else you got in your bag of tricks?” Dakota asked out of curiosity.

“Help yourself.  I brought more provisions.”

And he had.  Peanut butter, jelly, bread, cheesy crackers, cola, apple slices…

“Are these homemade?” Dakota whispered in wonder as he pulled out a Ziploc bag full of chocolate chip cookies.

“They’re an old family recipe, yes.  It’s my first attempt, so I can’t make you any promises as to their quality.”

Dakota bit into the firm confection and felt warm chocolate ooze into his mouth, as though the cookie was fresh from the oven.  That, of course, was impossible, since they had spent the last three hours fighting traffic and setting up for the eclipse, and neither Dakota nor Cavendish had had access to an oven in days… had they?

“Do you like them?” Cavendish asked shyly, practically wringing his hands.

“Heck yeah, but when did you find time to make these?”

“It’s… it’s a no-bake recipe, actually.  It uses Zyler’s Exothermic Baking Soda.”

Zyler’s.  The self-baking formula that wouldn’t be invented until the late 2080s.  It must have come from the future, and even then it wasn’t exactly cheap.  Other than the Pistachian incident, when cooking ingredients would have been the last thing on Cavendish’s mind, Dakota was pretty sure Cavendish hadn’t been to 2175 at all in the better part of a year.  That meant Cavendish must have brought a supply of ZEBS back when he was first dispatched to 2016, refrained from using it for all those months, and then decided to use it on a treat when it was just the two of them.

And as far as Dakota knew, Cavendish did not have any preference for chocolate chip cookies.

“These are amazing,” Dakota told Cavendish as he gobbled another cookie.  “Here, you should have a couple to warm yourself up.”

Cavendish accepted one, and ate it slowly.

Dakota lay down next to him, protection on, staring up at the sun again.  It was a narrower crescent now, more like a banana.  Had Cavendish noticed?  Cavendish was fond of bananas.  It was too bad Dakota hadn’t thought to bring any.

Without taking his eyes away from the eclipse, Dakota reached over and fumbled for Cavendish’s hand, but found his thigh first.  At Dakota’s touch, Cavendish volunteered his hand, resting it on Dakota’s as if to say, _I like where you’re touching me.  Please don’t move._

They lay there for a while longer, not saying a word, just watching the sun wane.

“You know, I’ve never seen a total eclipse before,” Cavendish blurted out.  “A couple of partials, but that’s all.”

“I’ve never seen any eclipse,” Dakota responded.  “Don’t know why.  I mean, it probably wouldn’t be too hard to find an excuse to go to a year that has one.  But since we _are_ in a year that has one, we might as well not miss out, you know?”

Cavendish shifted, as though trying to nod and watch and not take his hand off Dakota’s at the same time.  “To stop and smell the roses.  I suppose I haven’t been especially diligent about that.”

“Coulda, shoulda, woulda,” answered Dakota.  “And smelling the roses isn’t about being diligent.  It’s kind of the opposite, really.  You can’t plan for it.  You just have to take the good stuff when it comes, as it comes.”

“That’s not what I was taught.”  It was weird that Cavendish’s voice wasn’t sad, or bitter, but just matter-of-fact, as though he didn’t really like being uptight and stuffy, but it had never occurred to him to not like it.

“Well, it’s a hard lesson to teach.  But you seem to be catching on,” Dakota encouraged.

The sun was a thinner Cheshire cat grin now.  “It’ll be soon,” Cavendish said, finally sitting up.  “Eight minutes, as a matter of fact.”

Dakota almost accidentally lifted both pairs of shades from his eyes, but stopped himself at the last second.

It was definitely darker now, definitely colder, and yet clearly still the middle of the day.  That little fingernail of sunlight was all it took for Dakota to study Cavendish in perfect detail, still wrapped up in Dakota’s hoodie, crossing his legs pretzel-style.  Dakota could easily make out the mustard stain from the hotdog he had eaten earlier, the white patch on Cavendish’s nose where he hadn’t quite rubbed his sunscreen in all the way, the darker roots of the hairs on Cavendish’s mustache where he hadn’t bleached and dyed it lately—Dakota frequently wondered why his partner put so much effort into looking decades older than he really was, but by now it was hard not to love the odd coloring as just another part of _Balthazar_.  Would Dakota even recognize Cavendish if he presented himself as he was naturally?

Would Cavendish recognize Dakota if he did the same thing?

“What are you staring at?” Cavendish asked, as crickets around them started chirping, tricked into thinking evening was imminent.

“You,” Dakota said honestly.  “While there’s still enough light to do it.”

“So for five more minutes, then.”

“Yeah.”

“And will you continue to do so after it ends?”

“If I haven’t burned my retinas off, sure.”

“That’s not funny,” Cavendish insisted.  “If you damage your eyesight and require special accommodations, they might reassign you to a new partner.  Who knows when we’d see each other again?”

“Well, if I’m blind, then I guess never.”

“That’s truly dreadful!”  Cavendish actually sounded a little hurt that Dakota would talk that way, even in jest.  Dakota felt bad.

“So I guess we’d better both be careful then,” Dakota assured him.  "No naked eyes."

“Darn straight.  After this eclipse is over I’m sure you’ll want to see the next one we come across as well.  I think I will.”

Dakota threw his arms around Cavendish and squeezed him, a promise without saying a word, and they both knew it.

Cavendish relaxed in this embrace.  “Three more minutes,” he said.  “Perhaps we ought to start looking for shadow bands.”  Suddenly he stared intently at the blanket’s brown and red pattern and sighed, disappointed.  “It would be far easier if we had a white surface.”

“Shadow bands?”

“Little ripples of light.  They happen before and after a total eclipse, sometimes.  There are theories as to what causes them, but nobody’s one hundred percent sure, even in the future, and what the devil are you doing now?”

Dakota was once again topless, spreading his tank over the ground.  “It’s a white surface,” he suggested, and Cavendish scrutinized it, waiting for his shadow bands to appear, checking his watch every ten seconds or so.

Up over the hills, a blanket of gray was settling in, almost like rainclouds for a thunderstorm, but marvelously clear.  Dakota could make out a couple of birds and an airplane that would have surely been obscured by mere cloud cover.

“There they are!” Cavendish breathed, grabbing Dakota by the shoulder and forcing him to stare at the shirt on the ground.  Dakota wasn’t sure what to expect, but then something seemed to be stirring on the cloth, subtle at first, then dancing merrily like sunbeams on the bottom of a swimming pool on a bright day.  “Those little snakes, do you see them?”

“Yeah.”  There was something mesmerizing about them that almost tempted Dakota to stare at the tank top instead of watching the eclipse.  But if he could manage to pry his eyes away from Cavendish from time to time to check the progress of the sun, surely a random pattern on the ground wouldn’t distract him from the whole event, even if it was pretty.

“Thirty seconds,” Cavendish said as the squiggles intensified even more.  “I suggest you watch the sun… glasses on!”

Which Dakota did.  Despite the strange things that were happening around him, in the sky, in his chest, he knew the spectacle above them was one neither man wanted to miss.

“Twenty seconds.”

The sun was a tiny sliver now, diminishing more and more every second.

“Ten seconds.”

“Shouldn’t you be looking at the sun instead of your watch?”

“Valid point.”

Besides, now there was a verbal countdown carrying from the spectators in the parking lot.

“Seven!  Six!  Five!  Four!”

Such a tiny pinprick of light now.

“Three!  Two!”

Going, going…

“One!”

_Gone!_

Dakota ripped off his glasses, both pairs, and looked up.  A black ball ruled the sky, the only vestige of the sun being a lopsided cloud of warm-white light around it, as soft on the eyes as a nightlight in a baby’s nursery.  Somewhere in the excitement he and Cavendish had both gotten to their feet, but he wasn’t sure when that was.

Shouts of awestruck wonder resonated from the crowd, cheering, euphoric.

“It’s here,” Cavendish said unnecessarily.  “Look around you.”

Dakota did.  The entire horizon was lit up orange, like a sunset falling in every direction, 360 degrees around them.  Above the horizon, the sky transitioned to the majestic purple of midnight, and a few stars even poked out where it was darkest.

“Look at Venus,” Cavendish directed, pointing.  “And Mercury, down and to the left a bit of the sun’s corona.  Normally you would never see them in the middle of the sky like this, because they’re closer to the sun than we are.  And that one’s Mars, if I recall correctly.”

“Amazing,” Dakota breathed.

“Indeed.  Terrifying, yet amazing all at once,” Cavendish agreed.  “But we’re already more than halfway through.”

Dakota’s eyes darted rapidly between the corona, and the planets, and the horizon; it was all breathtaking.  It was so unfair to make him choose.  He couldn’t decide which wonder he wanted to watch with such limited time.

But he knew which wonder he wanted to touch.

“Thank you,” he said as he wrapped an arm around Cavendish’s waist, “for indulging me.”

“Thank you for suggesting it.  This… it’s incredible.  I have no words.  I thought it would just be like the partial eclipses I’ve seen, more or less, just bigger and darker, but this…”  He shook, with reverence more so than with cold.  “Now that I’ve seen this, I can’t imagine being satisfied with anything else.”  He turned and squeezed Dakota tightly.  “Or with any _one_ else.  Vinnie, I… I know I don’t always act like it, but believe me, there is no one I would rather be watching this with than you.”

With the moon and the sun overhead at the same time, Dakota stood on his toes as Cavendish bent down so their lips could meet in the middle.

This.

This was the most amazing thing about the eclipse.

And the best part was, while the eclipse itself was fleeting—two minutes, forty seconds, if Cavendish’s guide was to be believed—the most amazing thing could last indefinitely.  Tomorrow, or next year, or fifty years from now, Dakota could once more be kissing Cavendish, caressing him without letting go, and if he could remember to appreciate that as much as he appreciated the beauty of the spheres in the sky above them, then his life, from here on out, would be most wondrous indeed.

Then the light came back.

Just as the dark had rolled over the hills, so did the brilliance of the sun the moment it returned.  The shadow bands were back on the shirt, this time softening instead of working themselves up.  Venus was still visible, and Mars, and even Mercury still would have been there if hadn’t been too close to the sun to look without eclipse glasses…

Wait.

Eclipse glasses?

Dakota wasn’t wearing _any_ glasses, not even his signature sunglasses.

And his eyes were wide open, not obscured by contacts.

Cavendish was, predictably, staring.

Dakota turned away instinctively, but Cavendish cupped his chin and made him turn back.  Dakota slammed his eyes shut.

“Vinnie?  Please.”

Dakota couldn’t say no to that voice.

He opened them again to find himself face-to-face with Cavendish, whose baby-blue irises were still dilated because, after all, the sun wasn’t all the way back yet.

Those baby-blue eyes were staring at him, again.

“Nearly black,” Cavendish observed as he inspected Dakota’s right eye.  “And sky blue,” he added as he studied the left.  “Are those really your natural colors?”

Dakota nodded.  “They say it was probably an infection in-utero that disrupted melanin production in my left eye,” he recited.  “That’s why it’s blue even though genetically it’s supposed to be very dark brown.”

“Best of day and night.”  Cavendish kissed each of Dakota’s temples just next to the eyes.  “I’ve had my own eclipse by my side all along and I never knew.”

“It doesn’t bother you?” Dakota asked incredulously.

“Why would it?  They’re beautiful.”

_Beautiful_.  It had been a long while since anyone had described Dakota’s eyes that way.  When he was a small child, his grandmother and his aunts and the nice ladies at church had said so, and at the time, he had believed them.  But then had come kindergarten, and elementary school, and the ruthless cruelty of which children were capable when confronted with children who were different.  Around middle school, when sunglasses had come into vogue, Dakota found that by hiding his eyes, he could avoid getting teased.  So he adopted the habit and never looked back, carrying it into high school and adulthood, always sure that those two different colors stayed hidden.  To be seen without his sunglasses was to be seen naked.

“I don’t really show them to anyone,” Dakota admitted.  “Without the shades I feel exposed.”

“I like seeing you exposed, Vinnie,” Cavendish nearly purred.  “I’d like to see more of it, as a matter of fact.”

Dakota suspected the raspberry red was now visible on his own face.  In the waxing sunlight, it could only be getting brighter.

“Do you… mind that I pushed you?” Cavendish asked, more serious.

Dakota thought about it.  “Actually… now that things are out in the open, it’s kind of a relief.”  It was true, too.  Knowing that Cavendish, in spite of his rigid conformity, saw beauty in Dakota’s defect, removed an enormous weight from his chest.  Maybe, if Dakota could be comfortable with Cavendish seeing his eyes, he really could stand exposing himself to his partner in new ways after all.

“It is for me as well,” Cavendish said.  “It is a relief to know the reason for your masquerade is something as innocuous as heterochromia.”

The crickets’ chirps were dying down, and a bird started singing.  “What do you mean?”

Cavendish swallowed.  “Vinnie, I’ve noticed for some time now your reluctance to remove your sunglasses even indoors or at night.  I… I didn’t wish to pry, but that can be indicative of much more grievous afflictions.”

“Well, you knew I wasn’t blind!”

Cavendish closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.  “That wasn’t what I meant.  Never mind what I meant… I now see that it wasn’t the case.”

Dakota picked up the blanket to shake away their crumbs.  “Come on, tell me, now I gotta know!”

“It’s just that… well, such patterns of behavior are often associated with the misuse of controlled substances.”

Dakota dropped the blanket in surprise, effectively dirtying it again.  “Woah woah woah, now… you thought I was on _drugs_?”

“I didn’t know what to think!  But between the sunglasses, the lethargy, the persistent hunger… what else could it be?”  Cavendish picked up their trash and returned it to the appropriate compartment of the backpack.  “I… I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but you’ve been stressed, and… I’m sorry.”

The sorrow in Cavendish’s eyes was so sincere, Dakota couldn’t be mad without feeling guilty.  So he let it go.  “It’s all right.  Look, I really can’t blame you when I was the one keeping a secret.  Just not the one you thought.”

Cavendish smiled and picked up Dakota’s sunglasses from where they lay on the ground.  “I meant what I said, you know.  If we count those eyes separately, the eclipse is the _third_ most beautiful thing I’ve seen today.”  He tossed the glasses back to their rightful owner.  “But I shouldn’t have made you show me.  Put these on, or keep them off, it's your choice.  Just know that you needn't hide from me.”

Dakota put the sunglasses on, took them off, put them on again, took them off again.  With them, the world was dark and familiar.  Without them, it was bright and strange.  There were pros and cons to each.

Finally, he put them on and left them on.

“It’s still my look when I’m in public,” he explained, gesturing to the crowd, who were packing up their vehicles to leave.  “But rest assured… when we get back to the barn, it’s all coming off.”


End file.
